An iMessage notification sent to Glass
Adam Bell (@b3ll), a well-known developer for many software platforms, has figured out a way to route all notifications from an iOS device through Google Glass. The implementation, even in its early stage, seems to work quite well. Bell notes that all notifications, such as iMessages and Tweets automatically are shown via the Google Glass interface. Video and more details below:
Google announced on its Google Drive blog today that it is rolling out an updated Google Drive app for Android that includes a couple notable new features.
The app’s UI has been overhauled and now displays your Drive files in a familiar grid style view:
You can swipe between files to see large previews that let you quickly review and discover the information you’re looking for. And if you want to keep some Drive files on your Android device, you’ll now be able to “download a copy” from the actions menu inside settings.
Another big update included in the latest version of Drive for Android is the ability to ‘scan’ and store physical documents as PDFs. The new scan option will allow users to snap photos of documents and save them within Drive as a PDF. Thanks to Optical Character Recognition, you’ll also be able to search for the scanned docs using keywords.
The update includes a number of other improvements as well including the ability to download a copy of your files in Drive your device’s local storage, improvements to editing features in Google Sheets, and much more: Read more
Following showing off a redesigned three column version of Google+ for the web and new “Auto Awesome” photo editing features at I/O, Google is today bringing some of the new features to its Google+ for Android app.
The updated app, which should be hitting Google Play some time today, will include a number of new photo editing features including the new Auto Awesome effects, auto backup for photos, and other photo editing tools from Snapseed:
The updated Google+ for Android app will also offer improved location sharing with a new Locations section that lets you view your friends’ current locations on a map.
Lastly, after updating you’ll have the ability to access Google’s new intelligent related hashtags feature:
Samsung has proven almost effortlessly that the 5-inch smartphone has its place in the hands of the masses as it is on track to selling 10 million handsets in its first month, The Korea Times reports.
The company has plenty of room for sales to exponentially grow upward, possibly past their own already high expectations, as the smartphone that has taken the Android world by storm has yet to actually launch on Verizon in the States.
Verizon seems readily positioned to launch the Galaxy S4 as it announced earlier this week that it plans to sell the Samsung smartphone a week sooner than expected.
Samsung’s co-CEO Shin John-Kyun says the company expects the Galaxy S4 to be the fastest selling smartphone in the company’s history.
“We are confident that we will pass more than 10 million sales of the S4 next week. It is selling much faster than the previous model S3,” Samsung Electronics co-CEO Shin Jong-Kyun told reporters at an industry forum in Seoul, Thursday.
We got our hands on the Galaxy S4 last month for a review and gave it flying colors. Read more
Samsung has received criticism for the amount of storage its flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone allows users to access out of the box, but CNET reports that Samsung may be considering ways it could optimize the operating system and free up more space for users.
Samsung’s Galaxy S4 smartphone runs a custom variant of Android, which allows the company to include features not on other Android phones including Google’s own Nexus phones, but the feature-heavy OS comes at the cost of using half the capacity on a 16GB device.
We’re quite fond of the software featured on the Galaxy S4 as it allows it to stand out from other comparable smartphones, and the Galaxy S4 allows users to add to its storage with microSD cards which you can buy for less than 10 bucks in many cases, something the Apple iPhone and HTC One compromise on for design.
Following its I/O keynote address today, Google just announced on its commerce blog that it will soon be integrating Google Wallet features into Gmail to allow users to send and receive money. The feature will be available to those with a Google Wallet account and will initially be available to users 18 and older in the US:
Google Wallet is now integrated with Gmail, so you can quickly and securely send money to friends and family directly within Gmail — even if they don’t have a Gmail address. It’s free to send money if your bank account is linked to Google Wallet or using your Google Wallet balance, and low fees apply to send money using your linked credit or debit card.
Google will be adding a new $ icon next to the paperclip icon for attachements that will allow users to “attach money” to messages in Gmail by simply entering the amount and clicking send.
Google noted that the feature will first only be available on the desktop, but that users can also send money through wallet.google.com on mobile devices.
Look for the feature to start rolling out in the coming weeks but earlier access will be granted to those that receive money from others using the feature. You can learn more about sending money with Gmail here.
